Blank decks have no graphic on them and are typically priced very reasonably. Blank decks are usually colored a solid color or may even be made of unpainted wood. Historically blank decks have gotten a bad reputation for poor quality, however, there are a few brands of blanks today that are very similar in quality to pro boards and much more affordable. The downside to buying a blank complete with all blank parts is the lack of style and customization when compared to a pro deck. Also, blank skateboards may vary in quality from batch to batch, so it may be hard to find the same blank skateboard if you want to buy another one. Overall, blank skateboards can be a solid option if you have a tight budget and the person you are buying for doesn’t really care about the logo and brand.

Many parents and grandparents visit SkateXS for their young one’s first “real” skateboard with the same fundamental quality questions. I realized we could certainly do a better job of making sense of it all! So with a bit of karmic appeal that someone will someday finally explain unicycles to me, here is a summary of something we actually know a thing or two about!
After expanding from a successful board brand featuring Pontus’s own art and photography, the brand grew into making a high quality line of apparel that borders between athletic wear and traditional skate style. Over the last couple of years, Polar dropped jerseys and polos in high quality athletic materials, collabed with Converse on a couple of Chuck Taylors, and always kept a steady stock of their classic heavy chinos and hoodies, building up a brand you could literally rock head-to-toe.
Here's a list of the best skateboard truck brands (read about Trucks in the Skateboard Dictionary). Trucks can be expensive, and picking out the right set of skate trucks can seem tough. But, if you get a pair of trucks off of this list, you should be good. There are other brands that are good quality too, but each of these brands has something that helps it to really stand out. These aren't put in any particular order.

Most skaters consider width is the most important dimension of the deck. That is measured straight across at the widest point of the deck. Skateboard decks generally range between 7.0 to 10.0 inches depending on the shape of the deck. There are boards that are narrower and wider than that, but they are not common and not practical for all around skating.

Freedom Plaza has become a popular location for skateboarding, although the activity is illegal and has resulted in police actions.[5][115] A 2016 National Park Service management plan for the Historic Site states that skateboarding has damaged stonework, sculptures, walls, benches, steps, and other surfaces in some areas of the Plaza.[5] The management plan further states that skateboarding presents a persistent law enforcement and management challenge, as popular websites advertise the Plaza's attractiveness for the activity.[5] The plan notes that vandals have removed "No Skateboarding" signs and recommends the replacement of those signs.[5]

In 1975 skateboarding had risen back in popularity enough to have one of the largest skateboarding competitions since the 1960s, the Del Mar National Championships, which is said to have had up to 500 competitors. The competition lasted two days and was sponsored by Bahne Skateboards & Cadillac Wheels. While the main event was won by freestyle spinning skate legend Russ Howell,[30][31] a local skate team from Santa Monica, California, the Zephyr team, ushered in a new era of surfer style skateboarding during the competition that would have a lasting impact on skateboarding's history. With a team of 12, including skating legends such as Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Peggy Oki & Stacy Peralta, they brought a new progressive style of skateboarding to the event, based on the style of Hawaiian surfers Larry Bertlemann, Buttons Kaluhiokalani and Mark Liddell.[32] Craig Stecyk, a photo journalist for Skateboarder Magazine, wrote about and photographed the team, along with Glen E. Friedman, and shortly afterwards ran a series on the team called the Dogtown articles, which eventually immortalized the Zephyr skateboard team. The team became known as the Z-Boys and would go on to become one of the most influential teams in skateboarding's history.[27][33][34]

Welcome is doing everything the way that people would probably tell you not to when it comes to how they run their board company. With no real full-length project out since it became a company, and with no pros to name, but boasting a full roster of official riders, Welcome is as unorthodox of a skate company as it gets. They don’t even make a single board in the traditional popsicle shape most boards are made today.

Skateboarding is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, a entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation.[1] Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2009 report found that the skateboarding market is worth an estimated $4.8 billion in annual revenue with 11.08 million active skateboarders in the world.[2] In 2016, it was announced that skateboarding will be represented at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.[3]

Now venturing into making boards through a sister company Jamaica after running a line of them under their own Bronze name, Bronze has not slept after catching their first break of success. They recently collabed with Palace on a collection that instantly sold out, and have already dropped the successful first half of their collaboration with HUF. Keep an eye out for the second installment of that coming soon.
Bearings are very important if you want to keep rolling without pushing constantly, especially while street skating. They're typically rated with the ABEC (Annular Bearing Engineering Committee) scale. The ABEC scale only measures the precision of the bearing, not how well it rolls or how long it lasts. It's a common misconception that the ABEC scale refers to how fast the bearing rolls. Anything above 1 is precision and will perform fine for skateboarding, but it's recommended to go above a 3.
Of course, 2015 also stands for a line of new companies that drew a lot of attention on them and we are talking about some serious game-changers here. There was Sour Skateboards, who had an incredible launch (or are we talking of a comeback?) as well as Isle Skateboards (did you hear about the Bright European Skateboarding Awards 2016?), Krooked and many more. We are hyped for this year and can’t wait to explore whatever there is to come with all of you guys! We would love to know your opinion. Which are your favorite deck brands. Feel free to comment below.
You can get a lot of advice (and maybe too many opinions) from fellow skaters. Some of it might not be as informed or educated as a shop owner's (and some might be flat-out bad advice), but it should at least be sincere! If you don't have a local skate park, or are too uncomfortable to walk up to people and ask, you can also ask around on a skateboarding forum. People there will be more than happy to tell you what they think about deck brands.
If you want to do cruising and street style on the same board then you probably want a large board and larger wheels, as many have already commented. I think that an 8 inch board with at least 56 mm wheels will be best. I think that you should find a local shop to support and to talk to about gear. I would advise getting a shop deck, with Independent trucks (at the correct width for your board, which is one detail that a local shop should be able to help with) Bones street tech formula wheels (I like profiles 1 and, I think 5), and Bones Reds bearings (not super reds, super reds are not super).
Mark Gonzalez created bLind Skateboards in 1989, and shortly after initiated a pro team for his skateboard brand. The bLind brand is known for higher durability due to their innovative features. The boards released by bLind are developed and marketed for hardcore skaters and top other skateboarding brands. We like that bLind goes all out providing one of the strongest boards out there, and without sacrificing the flex needed for tricks. They also do it all with a sick style and an innovative business plan that has made them one of the top skateboard brands.
SkateXS has custom skateboards for kids of every young age. From ages 5-7 we have skateboards sizes 7” x 28”. For kids between the ages of 8-10 we have skateboards sized between 7.25” x 29”. These are the perfect sizes for young kids, since it helps them feel less overwhelmed by the board. It also helps provide them with a board that is ideal to their side, encouraging safe cruising and skateboard tricks.

In most cases, it is available in black but you can also find clear ones that are ideal for you if you want to show a specific logo. Another nice choice that you have is the die-cut grip tape, which works in displaying the color or design of the deck beneath it. Make sure to choose a grip tape at a size, which perfectly suits your skateboard’s deck.

Grip tape adds additional assurance for a rider's feet. It is made from a sheet of colored paper or fabric with adhesive on one side and a fine, sand paper surface on the other. Applied to the top surface of a skateboard, grip tape gives a person's feet an improved grip while maintaining stability for performing tricks. Skateboard trucks connect both the wheels and ball bearings to the deck and are directly attached to the deck themselves. They are usually constructed from aluminum alloy. The wheels are mounted to their axles via steel bearings. The wheels are made from polyurethane and available in a range of different shapes and sizes to suit most any skill level.

Emerging initially via a series of spoof news bulletins created by Lev Tanju called ‘PWBC Global Skateboard News‘ and hosted on the don’twatchthat.tv site, the aesthetic that the Palace Skateboards Brand would adopt was firmly established in these early videos. Sadly now mostly deleted from the Internet, aside from a few ‘best of’ videos, the PWBC News series were a pre-cursor for the route that the brand would adopt with its comedic take on the faux-seriousness of the Skateboard Industry of the time, an emphasis on the UK grime music scene, and the introduction of numerous characters within each news segment, including Francis Shower Face who still appears in Palace releases to this day, along with snippets of footage from various sources.

The growth of the sport during this period can also be seen in sales figures for Makaha, which quoted $10 million worth of board sales between 1963 and 1965 (Weyland, 2002:28). By 1966 a variety of sources began to claim that skateboarding was dangerous, resulting in shops being reluctant to sell them, and parents being reluctant to buy them. In 1966 sales had dropped significantly (ibid) and Skateboarder Magazine had stopped publication. The popularity of skateboarding dropped and remained low until the early 1970s.[7][25][26]

WKND turned a successful web series on the popular skateboarding site The Berrics into a company that is truly nothing but homies having fun and making videos they think are funny. Some people might dismiss them as another flash in the pan brand started by a crew of guys with some extra cash, but those same people have probably never watched American WKND and realized these guys are no fluke.

In this in-depth guide, we’re going to cover how to choose the best skateboard for beginners, and review the top five beginner skateboards on the market right now. We’ll talk about how to choose the right size, what parts of a skateboard you should pay attention to, how to choose the right shape, choosing the right wheels, and more. First, let’s talk about the top five skateboards for beginners.
If what you want out of your first skateboard is something very stable to just get the feel of riding without the danger, the Atom Drop Deck is perfect. This is a longboard, meaning it’s perfect for longer rides and cruising around. The components are made to handle lots of wear and tear, and the low-ride deck makes you feel more in control, closer to the ground, and more stable.
Krown has been producing skateboards since the late 1990s, which was the time when skateboards lived through a revival and became a popular hobby once again. Since then, Krown’s goal has been to create quality skateboards with budget prices. This has made Krown skateboards well sought after among beginners who want to try out extreme sports, and need a starting board. Even though Krown started out selling only skateboards, they have evolved to also sell longboards, pads, helmets and the alike over the years.

Quartersnacks has been on one these past few years, making soft goods that will instantly make you look like you don’t actually suck at skating (me), and getting the honor of customizing their own Nike SB Dunk Low. Name another company in skateboarding that has that, and a book about their first decade of history coming soon through the world-renowned Random House publishing company? We’ll wait.

Stacy Peralta and George Powell rekindled their business relationship in 2010 and have since been extremely successful once more, particularly through the re-release of many of their classic legacy skateboards, assisted by the return of the legendary graphic artist Vernon Courtlandt Johnson (aka VCJ) who was responsible for creating many of the brand’s most iconic board graphics.
In the skateboarding world, there is considerable shuffling of the famous top brands as not many of them manage to stay in the spotlight for long. This continuous reshuffling paves way for new skateboard brands to come into the spotlight. However, it is important to note that no two brands are the same and comparing them is difficult but the following list has been created by extensive research of the saturated skateboard market and features the best skateboard brands out there that you must give a try.